We need to demand that the Environmental Protection Agency ban the potent, persistent herbicides that continue to contaminate commercial compost and manure supplies.

For more than a decade, gardens and farms have been damaged by compost or mulch that was contaminated with persistent herbicides. These potent chemicals are applied to lawns, pastures, hayfields and roadsides, and continue to be highly toxic even after residues on grass or hay have been composted. When livestock graze on treated pasture or hay, these herbicides even remain potent in their composted manure. We’ve termed this recurring problem “killer compost.” (For one reader’s report on this herbicide contamination, see Dear MOTHER February/March 2013.)

In June 2012, employees at Green Mountain Compost in Williston, Vt., began fielding reports from gardeners about suspected herbicide damage following application of compost purchased at the facility. Initial tests of the compost revealed the presence of two herbicides — picloram and clopyralid — known to be persistent in compost. Green Mountain, which is now under the management of the Chittenden Solid Waste District (CSWD), immediately suspended sale of its bagged and bulk compost and began seeking the source of the contamination. It also started making reparation arrangements with customers who had reported damage. Picloram and clopyralid are produced by Dow AgroSciences to control broadleaf weeds on turf grass, pastures and rangelands. Both compounds are under restricted use in Vermont; picloram may only be applied by licensed applicators. According to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, there was no reported use of picloram in the state on any potential composting feedstock between 2009 and 2011.

The Plot Thickens

So how did these chemicals turn up in the compost? In early August 2012, CSWD identified area horse farms as the source of the contamination and sent letters to those farms indicating it could no longer compost their manure. Puzzled as to how the herbicides had gotten into the manure, CSWD asked those farms to indicate which commercial horse feed they had used, and then took the bold step of having samples of that feed tested. Bingo. According to initial lab results, several samples of off-the-shelf Purina horse feed were contaminated with clopyralid at levels between 142 and 465 parts per billion! Susceptible garden plants — such as beans, eggplant, peas, peppers, potatoes, sunflowers and tomatoes — are harmed at exposure levels as low as 30 ppb, five to 15 times lower than the levels detected in the horse feed.

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CSWD also sent the same lab — Anatek Labs Inc. in Moscow, Idaho — 84 samples of compost from other regional facilities as well as common local compost feedstocks, including bedding, manure, hay, straw and municipal grass clippings. The lab found picloram and/or clopyralid in 67 out of the 84 samples—80 percent! Meanwhile, on behalf of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Dow sent samples of manure, manure with bedding, compost, feed, hay, grass, and straw collected from across Vermont to its own contracted lab, Carbon Dynamics. The tests detected no picloram, but did find low levels of clopyralid in five samples, all of them commercial livestock feed.

A Long and Checkered Past

Dow voluntarily withdrew clopyralid for legal use on residential lawns a decade ago following compost contamination issues in California, Pennsylvania and Washington state. By 2004, levels of clopyralid in compost had dropped significantly across the Pacific Northwest thanks to tighter label restrictions. But then in 2010, Washington state farmers were hit again, this time with another Dow plant-killer, aminopyralid, and tainted compost caused extensive crop damage on organic farms and gardens. In 2011, DuPont (not Dow) began aggressively marketing another similar compound — aminocyclopyrachlor — under the brand name Imprelis.

The chemical companies consider these highly persistent herbicides “green” because a little goes a long way and because they remain effective over time. This staying power actually turns out to be an enormous problem.

Absurd Label Restrictions Aren’t Helping

In May 2011, the U.S. Composting Council (USCC) alerted members about Imprelis, the new persistent pesticide on the block, and the “do not compost” warning buried within its lengthy label. “One problem is that the warning is on page seven of a nine-page label, and unfortunately not everyone reads or follows the label,” former USCC Executive Director Stu Buckner wrote in a memo to members. “We are requesting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiate a special review of the registration due to the likelihood of residual herbicide levels in compost damaging non-target plants.” That turned out to be the understatement of the year. Certain species of trees began dying in alarming numbers in areas where Imprelis had been applied, and DuPont was faced with lawsuits seeking multimillions. The company voluntarily began recalling the product a week before the EPA issued an official Stop Sale Order. (See Imprelis: Another Deadly Herbicide, This Time From DuPont for more details.)

Fox Guarding the Henhouse

CSWD General Manager Tom Moreau says it has been frustrating to learn that the EPA has no standard procedures for testing persistent herbicides in compost or feedstocks down to the levels at which garden plants are affected, depending instead upon the companies to develop their own test protocols. “There is no approved standard procedure or certification process,” says Moreau. “The labs have to ask Dow and DuPont and get permission to use their proprietary testing procedures. It’s akin to the fox guarding the henhouse.”

What this essentially means is that when chemical companies market their chemicals, often they are the only ones who know how to run tests to detect contamination — and they then charge labs for the right to use the tests.

Given how widespread the contamination was in the Vermont tests, this problem likely transcends the state’s borders. Remember: The testing of dozens of Vermont samples found herbicide contamination in 80 percent of manure, hay and grass clippings. Dow and DuPont are, again, poisoning compost across the United States.

On Aug. 16, 2012, members of the U.S. Composting Council met with 10 EPA officials in Washington, D.C. According to the Council, the EPA was amenable to the idea of developing a testing method to pre-screen herbicides for their fate in compost. Considering how powerful the chemical companies are, however, it’s going to take pressure from the public to force the EPA to finally protect us from this “herbicide roulette.”

It's Time to Outlaw Persistent Herbicides

We simply cannot allow chemical giants to continue to peddle such persistent and powerful pesticides. It is well past time for the EPA to fix this problem. The solution is simple — stop allowing companies to profit by selling these plant-killers while hiding behind “do not compost” warnings buried in nine-page labels. Our guess is that while the Composting Council agrees with us, it doesn’t want the public to know about this issue because then we might stop buying its products. Well, as much as it pains us to say it, we believe the time has come for the public to stop buying compost or manure products unless they come from suppliers that are able to afford testing and can screen feedstocks for herbicide residues. A few companies have told us this is the only way they know of to deliver safe compost to their customers, but the added costs for testing make competing tough. And now we’ve learned that these Dow and DuPont herbicides are even contaminating our livestock feeds!

This has to stop. Clearly, EPA labeling requirements and state regulations aren’t working. Recycling organic wastes to maintain soil fertility is essential if we want a sustainable food-production system. Picloram, clopyralid, aminocyclopyrachlor and all similar chemicals should be banned, period.

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To express your view on the use of these persistent pesticides, we suggest you send your comments to Richard Keigwin, director of the EPA’s Special Review and Reregistration Division, at keigwin.richard@epa.gov.

—Cheryl Long, Editor-in-Chiefof MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Share your thoughts.

soflogarden

8/20/2016 4:49:42 PM

We made some raised beds about six months ago. This the first time we had enough outdoor space for gardening in ten years. We thought we were being careful with a mix of 2 parts topsoil, two parts compost, 1 part peat moss. I amended the soil with crab shells and kelp meal. We then planted tomatoes, corn, pole beans, etc at anxiously waited. Everything looked great for about a month. Then the growth stalled. We did everything we could think of, but eventually all the crops failed, except for the radishes. We also planted a few peppers in buckets, not using the composted Cow manure that we put in the beds (we ran out room in the beds). The peppers in the buckets are big and bushy. There is one pepper plant still alive in the raised beds and it's about 5ins tall after six months!! We are inexperienced gardeners in the zone we live in (10b) and assumed we started everything too late in the season. After reading this and a few other resources I'm beginning to think it was the cow manure. I read that charcoal can help. I'm going to try that, as I just planted a new crop of peppers in one of the beds and they don't seems too happy.

coltonj232

5/20/2014 7:11:32 PM

To anyone that has ever ran into a herbicide carry over I have the answer that will help you. I work for company that provides a natural approach to herbicide in the soil. Oh and did I mention it is usda certified organic. This product is called Reclaim. Reclaim stimulates the existing microbes in the soil to create a barrier between the roots and the herbicide. this prevents the toxins from entering the plant and allows the mirco biology to break the chemical chains of the herbicide apart.
This is a concentrate so you only need a quart per acre. this is a crop saving miracle that I wish more small scale farmers new of!!!
If any one would like to get this product email me @ colton@agprous.com

fmarabate

4/22/2013 7:17:43 PM

So, do I need to worry about the manure that I am getting from daughter's rabbits? How are we supposed to any manure is safe? Is there any plan to test the different feeds for traces of this stuff in it?

This just another reason I would like to move to my own island and raise all my own food.

Yeah. It's really a shame. There's so much stuff out there that will be going to waste because there's simply no way we can trust it.

Keith Cossairt

2/19/2013 9:28:38 PM

find and dandy.... but what about the HORSES AND LIVESTOCK eating and crapping these chemicals ?

t brandt

2/13/2013 12:46:42 PM

Of course there's a good excuse for using them: they greatly enhance the pasture quality for keepers of livestock without harming fuana. I'm sorry you lost your pants, but, is that merely a rare ancedotal occurrence, or is this a major problem to many? If it's that common, then better labeling/education will prevent those who use the product to not allow the subsequent manure from entering the compost process. Cars kill 40,000 Americans per yr. We don't outlaw cars. Their good outweighs their bad.Outlawing DDT saved a few eagles, but has allowed millions of Africans to die of malaria. Good trade-off?

DAVID GOODMAN

2/12/2013 3:09:31 AM

Aminopyralids are almost impossible to track with given supply lines and interactions. One person buys hay from another and feeds it to a cow, then someone else gets the cow manure for their garden... and the garden dies. I lost $1000 worth of plants last year (that's one of my eggplants in the photos). There's no excuse for these poisons.

Edward Faydo

2/1/2013 4:51:51 PM

So these chemicals are long lasting and kill plants even after being digested and composted. No where in the article was the question of the long term effects on children in development of the brain addressed. The wide spread of autism and ADHD. Does these and other chemicals put in to our food supply have underlying effects?

t brandt

1/25/2013 11:30:13 PM

Why do you always have to demonize the chemical companies? ALL engineering soultions involve compromises: benefits vs side effects. The pyridine family of herbicides is among the safest in terms of causing damage to animal life or ill effects in humans.. They do have the draw back (or advantage, depending on your point of view) of being long-lived, degraded only slowly by soil bacteria. Better education, awareness & diligence is needed to prevent them from entering compost materials, not making them illegal.

ROBERT LACOE

1/25/2013 9:17:58 PM

How long will this poison remain in the soil in high enough concentrations to destroy our crops? I use hay in my dog house and then put it in garden as mulch. My daughter spreads hay on the ground for her chickens to scratch in, and we all eat the eggs as well as feeding them to our dogs. What are we doing to our pets and ourselves?

barry norris

1/25/2013 6:49:22 PM

Apparently a GMO alfalfa that is "RoundUp Ready" is being considered for field trials somewhere in Oregon. Does anyone know more about this?

Julie Larson

1/25/2013 6:10:08 PM

For the last 5 years we have gotten free horse manure from organically minded friends for our garden. In 2011 we noticed the leaves of eggplant, tomatoes, squash, sunflowers were curling, cupping and blossoms were splaying. Everything was mutating except the corn which stood tall as ever! After many misdiagnosis, we finally paid $200 for a toxic screen and found out our soil was full of picloram from the horse manure. We were devastated, our mother soil had turned to poison. We spent thousands of dollars removing the contaminated soil and bringing in new. A year later still find small patches where we had spread the manure and not removed it, effecting growth. This stuff is evil and has been released into our food chain. Time for action!

ROBERT ERICKSON

1/25/2013 4:55:47 PM

In our area of Texas, there are a lot of horse farms that advertise free manure/straw compost. I have been reluctant to try it because of this very issue. And even though straw/hay is highly recommended as a mulching material, I am reluctant to buy any because it is doubtful that the supplier or almost everyone in the chain knows what herbicide was applied before cutting and baling. As a result, I am increasing my commitment to composting my own grass, leaves, rotting wood, food scraps, and the like. It is slower and more labor on my part, but the alternate is a sterile garden for several years. Since it will take at least a decade for any government agency to react, I suggest that everyone who grows anything develop their own composting program and forget about free or available commercial resources. I am not anti-business but I am anti-false advertising and misleading promotion of harmful products.

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